In this talk, James Tobin, Ph.D., presents his Relational Parenting approach, a pragmatic guide for parents to help resolve parent-teen conflict and family systemic issues.

2. A Parent-Teen Dialogue:
The case of “Samantha”

3. Parents’ anxiety levels are often sky-high, given the
significant sensation-seeking and risk-taking behavior
common among adolescents today.
3

4. Family communication is often characterized by chronic
unresolved conflict, with little or no listening and no real
problem-solving; the family functions like a sitcom, i.e.,
each person has a script and acts out the same role over
and over again. Nothing new ever happens and most
interactions devolve into submission, disengagement, or
impasse. Some say that parent-adolescent
communication is an oxymoron!
4

5. Unfortunately, many parents’ efforts at controlling or
influencing their teenager don’t work. Most parents
realize this but, in the heat of the moment do not have
the presence of mind to make a SHIFT somehow (nor do
they know what to shift to).
5

6. Due to this problem, parents’ scripts narrow and
rigidify, i.e., they become helicopter
mom, lecturer, policeman, worry-wart, micro-manager.
Their range of being with their children becomes highly
constricted.
6

7. Anxious, confused, angry, frustrated, and worn out,
parents often resort to identifications with their child
and memories of their own childhoods to teach their
child (e.g., “When I was your age, I …..”); these attempts
usually fall on deaf ears, primarily because they directly
combat the highly determined unconscious goal of the
adolescent: to de-identify from the family of origin (to be
separate and unique).
7

8. The emotional intensity of what the adolescent is
contending with (self-esteem, hormones, sexuality,
romantic relationships, peer pressure, academic stress,
family issues, etc.) is often too much for many parents to
hear and tolerate – seeing their loved one in pain and
strife typically causes the parent to try to solve the
problem or rescue the child from suffering (I call this
“ACTING ON” the child, which is especially common
among mothers).
8

9. What the research tells us ….
• (a) The adolescent’s brain is not fully developed. “The
frontal lobes, home to key components of the neural
circuitry underlying ‘executive functions’ such as
planning, working memory, and impulse control, are
among the last areas of the brain to mature; they may not
be fully developed until halfway through the third decade
of life” (Johnson et al., 2009, p. 217).
9

10. • (b) Adolescents today are actually less mature than in
prior generations dating back to the 1950s; these
deficiencies exist across numerous factors including
decision-making, frustration
tolerance, attention/concentration, goal-directed
behavior, capacity to empathize, interpersonal
sensitivity, mood regulation, identitydevelopment, self-reflection, cause-effect
reasoning, etc. Research shows that teens’ use of
social networking sites is correlated with
depression, loneliness, and small social circles (called
“the reduction hypothesis”).
10

11. • (c ) Parents know and understand their adolescent
child less than in previous decades (there is even
some data indicating that parents report loving their
children less than in previous decades).
11

12. • (d) Parents rate their main parental “function” to be
discipline and the instillation of moral values (their
least important parental function is relating to their
child). Adolescents rate their views of parents in the
opposite direction: adolescents primarily value a
relationship with their parents, and don’t value
discipline and the instillation of moral values.
12

13. • (e) Adolescents want and need a relationship with
their parents. The long-standing view that teens
simply want to be with their friends and leave their
parents behind has largely been refuted. At the core
of the relationship adolescents want and need with
their parents is the feeling of being known and
recognized as a unique person.
13

14. Two primary issues concerning adolescence
often confuse parents and clarification on
these points seems to help ….
(I) First, the adolescent is driven to differentiate from parents
and the rest of the family, and to transition into young
adulthood as a unique, independent self, with his or own
ambition/calling/passion, who is emotionally and
psychologically mature.
14

15. Although the teen is driven to do this, he/she is profoundly
conflicted about it …. i.e., with the initial realization “I am
different/I may not be accepted” the child falls into conflict –
and for many, this conflict remains across the lifespan. Many
children simply cannot tolerate this conflict when it starts in
adolescence, so instead of dealing with it inside of him- or
herself, he or she gets into conflict with others so the focus
moves away from the internal conflict!
Most of adolescence is concerned with the teen’s
unconsciously encouraging or INDUCING others to fall into
conflict with him or her, rather than the teen being in
conflict with him- or herself.
15

16. (II) Second, the teen has another conflict – to remain a
child vs. to become an adult. But the teen isn’t the only
one with this conflict: one or both parents also share the
same conflict and collude with the child about it, i.e., the
parent cooperates with the child in the child’s
unconscious efforts to stay young, pushes too hard to
have the child grow up, or gets into a polarized position
with regard to the child (one wants to have the child stay
young, one wants the child to grow up).
16

17. Most adolescent mood, behavioral, and academic
problems can be linked to unresolved conflict
somewhere in the family system re: the appropriate
pacing of the adolescent’s maturity from childhood to
adulthood; often the conflict is fueled by resistance to
the necessary adjustment of family roles as the
adolescent is maturing.
17

18. What does this all mean?
A. The typical adolescent is in turmoil about (1)
differentiating (becoming a unique identity, finding
oneself, knowing oneself) and (2) moving into
adulthood, and literally lacks the brain power to get over
these hurdles. In some sense, adolescents’ brains and
bodies mature too quickly and their emotional and
psychological capacities lag behind (e.g., sex)
18

19. B. Technology/social networking sites, and a range of
other factors have likely delayed adolescents’ emotional
and psychological growth (decisionmaking, impulsivity, self-knowledge, etc.), further
intensifying the already intense need on the part of most
parents to ACT ON the child.
19

20. C. Scientists agree that the quality of the parent-child
relationship predicts all significant outcome variables for
the adolescent as he/she ages across the lifespan.
20

21. D. So the main issue for parents in the 21st century is to
focus on cultivating a relationship with their teen in
which parents (1) avoid becoming induced by their teen
(ACTING ON the teen), and (2) capitalize on
opportunities for the teenager to grow (what do parents
do if they are trying not to ACT ON their child?).
21

22. Induction: underlying all social systems learn is a direct
and implicit (unconscious) code that insures each
member of the system stays in a particular role
(bees, ants, etc). In the family social system, roles
inevitably become outdated -- yet in some families there
is resistance to new roles.
22

23. Opportunities for growth: these moments involve the parent’s
shift from ACTING ON the child to BEING WITH/OBSERVING
the child and INQUIRING (which is incredibly difficult). “Tell
me more” is the single best inquiry a parent can use! There is
now scientific data indicating that this isn’t just a hallmark
card/sentimental thing, but that it prevents PRUNING of selfreflective and emotional regulation neuronal pathways in the
adolescent’s brain (pruning continues into young adulthood).
In my opinion, accelerated pruning has caused a “silent
epidemic” among adolescents/young adults.
23

24. But remember, even if the parent is able to do this, the
child will resist it because … the teen is conflicted about
being unique and differentiated, and no longer being a
child. So, the teen will tend to induce right at the
moment when the opportunity for growth is about to
occur based on the parent’s hard work.
24

25. Because of this, I coach parents NOT to take what their
adolescent says or does personally, and I joke with
parents that they must see their teen as ALIEN. The
alien vision helps parents become curious and intrigued
and to resist identifying with their child or becoming
induced, all of which promotes deeper levels of
communication.
25

26. Being with, observing, and inquiring builds the teen’s
emotional capacities – emotional material must be
worked on interpersonally before the teen is able to do it
internally. Through thousands of these interactions, the
child gradually becomes a self based on his or her
feelings being legitimized, tolerated, and explored with a
parent.
26

27. If the teen senses that the parent cannot resist ACTING
ON him or her, the teen will panic and fear he or she will
never be able to hatch and literally BECOME
THEMSELVES/DIFFERENTIATED in a natural way….
so, the teen will attempt to differentiate in highly
inappropriate, un-natural ways (there are 3 of these):
27

28. #1 Self-sabotage/under-achievement: the teen directly
challenges the parent by acting vs. the parents’ vision of
the child. Acting-out behaviors, substance abuse, eating
disorders, etc. may be conceptualized from this
perspective.
28

29. #2 The “false self”: when attempts at differentiation on
the part of the teen have failed, the teen may give up on
making further attempts at differentiation; as a
result, the teen surrenders to the parent’s vision of the
child (literally, the teen gives up on the development of
their own unique identity). In this scenario, the teen
“identifies” with the parent’s vision and embodies
it/becomes it.
29

30. #3 Identification with the parent (“cloning”): in this
attempt at differentiation, the teen resists the parent by
becoming the parent. Literally, bit by bit the teen
unconsciously takes on the attitudes, characteristics, and
emotional style of the parent (e.g., “cloning” the parent).
This is the child’s ultimate accomplishment at
differentiating and the parent’s worst fear: the child will
not become the parent’s dream or vision
but, instead, will be all that is unresolved (“broken”;
“dysfunctional”) in the parent!
30

31. In conclusion, the parent’s major job in parenting the
adolescent is to create a space for the teen to process
his or her intense and unique emotional experience, and
to inquire about it rather than act on it. This is an
impossible job, and parent-child conflict during
adolescence is inevitable!!!!!
31

32. The parent must come to un-know the child, i.e., see the
child not as YOU or a version of you and your
husband/wife or your dream for the child … but as
distinct, separate, fallible, imperfect, damaged, and in
pain (the human condition).
32

33. Witnessing/being with the child, not intruding upon or
withdrawing from, will promote the natural capacities of
the child to become an identity/a self, with a voice and a
calling ….
33

34. As the child’s emotional experience is explored and
tolerated, this will legitimize the child’s emotional life and
help the child understand that he/she is actually a self whose
inner experience is of value and is not destructive. The child
must learn, through the parent’s capacity to contain and
survive the child’s severe emotional states, that the child’s
emotions will not destroy him- or herself or another person.
This provides the basis for selfexperience, identity, individuality and mutuality (romantic
love) – and makes it possible for the child to grow up and, as a
young adult, discover his/her unique personhood.
34

35. The End!
Many thanks to Annette and the staff at Fusion
Academy for inviting me to present!
35

36. James Tobin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist PSY 22074
220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1
Newport Beach, CA 92660
949-338-4388
Email: jt@jamestobinphd.com
Website: www.jamestobinphd.com